


Recover

by Kannika



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Episode s01e26: Auld Acquaintance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28508613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kannika/pseuds/Kannika
Summary: The mind control wears off in twenty-four hours, but the effects linger.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Diana (Wonder Woman), Billy Batson & Zatanna Zatara, Clark Kent & Kon-El | Conner Kent, Diana (Wonder Woman) & Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dinah Lance/Oliver Queen, Giovanni "John" Zatara & Zatanna Zatara, J'onn J'onzz & Bruce Wayne, Roy Harper & Dinah Lance & Oliver Queen
Comments: 9
Kudos: 63





	Recover

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 2021!
> 
> I wanted to explore what it would have been like for the League in the aftermath of the mind control at the end of season one. There was a lot that happened in the finale- being mind controlled, fighting the team, the missing sixteen hours, and the discovery of Roy being a clone and a mole all happened in one day.
> 
> It's my first time writing some of these characters. The League is so interesting, I'm going to write more of it for sure.

“Hey.” 

Barry looked up blearily from where he was sitting against the side of the Watchtower, and he had to blink a few seconds before he could make out who was there: Diana. She had her hands on her hips and her eyes trained on him, the no-nonsense warrior he had come to expect over the years, but she was clearly less put together than usual. She wasn’t usually one to show that something hurt her, because not much did, but this time she didn’t seem to be trying to hide it. Maybe it was out of sympathy for the rest of them. 

Maybe it was worse for her than it was for him. After all, he at least knew what he had done. 

“Hey,” Barry replied. “How are you holding up?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that.” Diana tilted her head slightly, surveying him. “Are you hurt?”

“No. Just… exhausted.” And disoriented. But again, it had been worse for her than it had for him, so he kept his mouth shut. 

Her eyes said she didn’t believe him, but he was still surprised when she lowered herself to sit beside him.

“Then why aren’t you going home?” She asked gently.

Barry just shook his head. He had the brief thought of taking off his mask, just because it felt so damn suffocating right now, but decided against it. They didn’t know if there were any cameras planted here or anything like that. After all, most of them hadn’t left the Watchtower for the duration of being controlled. They had to have been doing more than just… stacking boxes. There had to have been more of a purpose than that, if they had been _controlled into doing it._

“Can’t yet,” he admitted. “I’m counting myself lucky I didn’t go home while we were… you know. Because they might have found out, and… and then…”

And his mind threw up a mental block against that, because the brief glimpse he saw made him feel sick. He knew his family was safe, he hadn’t gone home while he was controlled, he had called and checked that much as soon as he could think straight. But he was afraid that there was something left inside him that the scans hadn’t caught. That would resurface as soon as they left the Watchtower. 

If he did anything to them… If he put them in danger… 

“I understand,” Diana said. “I’m not going back, either. Not yet. I… don’t think I can face my fellow warriors yet, without understanding what it is I did.”

“Any thoughts?” Barry asked. 

Diana was silent for a very long time. Across the room, he saw Arthur take a seat against the wall and close his eyes, settling in the same way that they were. His wife was pregnant, Barry realized. That would be enough to keep anyone away until all doubts were gone.

“My muscles burn,” Diana said at last, slowly. “Like I have been using them. Like I was… maybe fighting, or running. But I don’t remember why.”

Barry had nothing.

This was going to be a long night.

\--------------------------

M’gann had a bruise on her cheek. 

It was very faint, but the more Clark stared, the more he became certain that he wasn’t just seeing things. There was one on her face— right where her jaw met her neck, and it looked like it was forming late, and it looked like it hurt. And it was…

The size of a fist, he realized in dawning horror. One of them had done that to her.

And then M’gann glanced over at him, and there was fear in her eyes for just a second before she looked down and flew away before he could say anything. 

“What?” Superboy— Conner, he was trying to get used to the name, he had to think of him as that now— said, somewhat suspiciously. That was to be expected. Clark was staring at his girlfriend, after all. 

“Did I…” He had to swallow. “M’gann has a bruise on her neck. Did I do that?” 

Conner’s eyes narrowed slightly— god, he looked so unlike him when he did that, he had never scowled this much when he was sixteen— and he set his jaw. “Yeah,” he said. “Just the one hit, though.” 

That… didn’t feel right. Clark knew how his body felt when he had been doing things humans did, and he knew how it felt when he had been fighting, and his body ached with the latter. There was a certain tightness in his fists, when he had been using them, and when he looked at them now…

There was blood on the back of his fists. He was going to pass out. 

He glanced back up at Conner, who looked a bit spooked. Clark couldn’t blame him. If he looked half as disoriented as he felt, he probably didn’t seem like much of the warrior he would have been taught about. 

“Who did I fight?” He asked him. “I did fight someone, if I only… hit M’gann once. Who else?”

Conner looked at him, face flat, and crossed his arms. “Me,” he said, and looked away. “At least until Robin could get the Kryptonite. Which hurts, so… sorry.”

“I fought _you?_ ” Clark repeated, and put his hands up when Conner started to bristle. “Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just… I’m sorry.” 

Conner blinked, less angry and more understanding. “You were controlled,” he said, but everything about him was suspiciously flat. Like he wanted to get out of this conversation as fast as possible. 

And M’gann was only bruised. And there was blood on the back of his knuckles. 

_I hurt you,_ Clark nearly said aloud in his horrified shock, _I could have killed you. I could have killed you before I ever got a chance to speak to you._

Conner kept staring at him. Just below his collar, Clark could see now, there was a bit of blood and bruise that he had missed at first glance. And the ache in his bones from the Kryptonite was faint. They had only pulled it out as a last resort. There had been a fight before that. Probably one of good length. 

“Still,” Clark said, feeling very small. “I’m sorry.” 

Conner shrugged and turned away, but his movements were stiff. Forced. He was favoring his left side over his right, and there was rubble in the folds of his pant legs. “It’s alright,” he said gruffly, and went in the same direction as M’gann. He was slightly limping. 

Clark was going to have a talk with Bruce about making sure Kryptonite was easier to find, and have a talk with Robin about rearranging priorities if this happened again, and that priority was that he wouldn’t have to watch someone walk away and think _they should be dead._

\--------------------------

Bruce wasn’t used to seeing J’onn in the infirmary, but… these were strange circumstances. 

“I had decided it was a side effect of the mind control at first, but now I believe it is something more,” he said, sitting down in the stool across from Bruce. His posture was odd— forced. For a second Bruce had the thought that maybe it was a resurgence of the mind control, that someone was pulling his strings again, but suspicion flared in J’onn’s eyes, too, and he realized he was having the same thought. 

Bruce nodded for him to continue, and he held out his arm, mentally peeling back a bit of his shirt to expose his forearm. “I felt… dizzy, after we got back, and I do not think it was a result of the control. I believe it was from excessive exposure to heat. I believe you will find oxygen deprivation in my bloodstream, as well.” 

Bruce nodded and got a syringe out of one of the cabinets. This wasn’t usually his place, or his job, but he was here so for now it was. “What would excessive exposure mean, for you? Climate or fires?”

“It could be either, unfortunately.” He paused. “But… perhaps it is a clue, nonetheless.”

To what had happened during the sixteen hours they were unaccounted for. There was hope in his voice, the very faint edges he was trying to hide. J’onn had to know it would be naïve to think they could figure out so crucial of an answer so quickly, realistically, but he wanted this off their shoulders. Bruce understood the sentiment, but he was right. 

“I don’t know,” he answered. “But I’ll look into it.”

Bruce didn’t like mysteries he couldn’t solve, but he had a bad feeling this was going to be one.

\----------------------

Roy was a clone. 

It didn’t matter how many times Dinah repeated it to herself, quietly, in her head, in an attempt to normalize the shock and move onto how to solve the problems posed by it— it wasn’t processing. It wasn’t clicking. Roy… he was like her son. A cranky, self-fulfilling prophecy of a son, but a son nonetheless. She knew Oliver felt it even more so. They spent birthdays and Christmas with him. She got him his license when he turned sixteen. She tracked him down after he split from Oliver and made sure he had someplace to stay, and for two weeks after, without telling him because she knew he wouldn’t appreciate it and she didn’t want to push him over an edge. 

There was no way that wasn’t done with the same wide-eyed, angry, hurting boy Ollie had brought home and taught how to shoot bullseyes blindfolded, who Dinah had forced home-cooked meals on and sparred with until they fell asleep in a heap on the training room floor. It just _couldn’t._

But it was. And if she was handling that badly, Oliver was a drowning man.

She stood next to him as he sat on one of the chairs at the table. “I don’t believe it,” he murmured, for what may have been the tenth time, head in his hands. Dinah had stopped keeping track a while ago. “I can’t believe he’s…”

He trailed off. Dinah could think of a couple of ways to end the sentence, none of them good, and she was glad Roy and Conner weren’t around to hear them. 

“Well… he is,” she said carefully, putting her hands on his shoulders and standing in front of him. Stable. She had to be stable. Nobody else here was, so she had to be. “And the sooner we accept that and move on, the better. You told me that once. Remember?”

“Yeah. I believe you punched me for it, though.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t deserve it.”

Oliver didn’t laugh. Just shook his head again, despondently. Self-deprecating. He was sinking so fast she could actually track the descent. 

“Hey.” She lifted his head with her hand, and while she was planning to kiss him there were too many eyes on them for that. So she just kissed his forehead, and he leaned into her and started back down. She just put her arms around him and let it happen. “Hey. We’ll figure this out. We just… need to be there for him.”

Oliver was silent. That was never a good sign, and sure enough, he said, “I don’t know if I want to.”

“Doesn’t matter if we want to.” And if that wasn’t the story of her life. “We have a responsibility. He’s alive, so he needs help.”

Oliver breathed in, then back out sharply. “He’s right about one thing. We need to find Roy.”

“And we will.” She ran her fingers in his hair, catching Bruce’s eye as he entered the room and waving him off. It said something about his mood that he listened without questioning her, turning neatly on his heel and starting back out to leave them alone. She wanted Oliver to settle before things started again. Just for a second. There was only so much you could hit someone with at once. 

She loved Roy and Artemis like they were her own, yes, but they _weren’t_ hers. She was removed from them. She wanted to help them because they were good kids, but she didn’t have the same responsibilities that he did. And now, looking at him, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to.

“I don’t know where to start,” he murmured. “Dinah. Where are we even supposed to _start?_ ”

“We start—" She kissed his forehead again, and came to a split second decision of what he needed. It was fifty-fifty, but today… “With going home. And having a few drinks, and putting on your stupid obnoxious music—"

“We’ve already discussed this, you have no taste—"

“—And sitting and letting the possession drain out of us,” she continued, firmly. “And then we sleep, and in the morning we go back to the beginning and figure this all out.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Oliver lifted his head, eyes clearing a little when he looked at her, and then brushed her hair over her shoulder. Against her will, every muscle in her body locked, and he felt it and pulled his hand away from the back of her neck. It felt raw, like an exposed nerve, and it was a second before she could breathe again. 

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “As usual. Let’s get you home.”

Whatever got him moving, she would take, at this point. She helped him stand up and, without looking at Roy (clone Roy, volatile, lost, sarcastic, scared Roy who wasn’t real—), they moved toward the zeta tubes.

\---------------------- 

Zatanna wasn’t speaking to anyone. 

Billy wasn’t completely sure about most of his observations about people, being ten, but something was definitely off about her body language. Being alone was the first clue— no one else was alone. Everyone else seemed to be taking comfort from at least the presence of the other people on the Watchtower and how unsettled they were by this. The rest of the team was gathered together, nursing their wounds and holding hands in a few cases, but she stood apart, watching them but not close enough to join them. 

And she was holding her arm like she was hurt when there wasn’t a scratch on her. She finally seemed to realize Billy was staring at her and her hold on herself only tightened. She forced a smile, but her eyes were downcast. “I’m fine.”

“I… don’t think anyone’s fine right now. Not yet.”

It was always a chance, when he tried to think as an adult and not a kid, in Captain Marvel’s body, but this time he hit on the right thing. Zatanna nodded and murmured, “I feel that.” Somehow he didn’t think it was just metaphorical. Zatanna was young compared to the adults, but her magic gave her a different vibe than normal people. Something older. Something wiser. 

Something… more menacing, right now. There was anger in her eyes— and deep, deep sorrow. 

This was about her father, then— Doctor Fate. She was thinking about when she tried to take the helmet off and get him back. After it had knocked her away, something had flickered through her gaze. Hesitation. Stubborn anger. _This is the only chance I’m going to get to have him back._ Billy was still confused, still off-kilter, but he had seen it, and the determination in it felt earthshaking.

And an explosion had rocked the Watchtower, and someone was in danger, and she had gotten up and run in the direction of it and left Billy alone. 

“I had a chance,” she muttered. “I should have taken it. I should have…”

She stopped. Billy was glad she did. He didn’t know Zatanna very well, but he knew regret like an old friend. And her voice dripped with it. Froze with it. Splintered and cracked into terrible longing.

“You did the right thing,” he said, attempting to smooth it over— but, instantly, it registered that those were the wrong words to say. She turned toward him in an abrupt quick movement and faced him down, cutting and dangerous. Right now, she looked like the warrior. She looked like she could take down everything in front of her and it made him feel like he was shrinking.

“I don’t want to do the right thing,” Zatanna said quietly, eyes blazing. That defiance was going to be a problem later, he could already tell, but right now it was arresting. “I want my father back.”

There was nothing to say. If there was a single sentiment he understood, it was that, but he couldn’t do anything about it. There was nothing in his power or anyone else’s. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said, but it was the ten-year-old in him that said it, not the man. It felt useless and small and an attempt at peace when she was looking for a war.

Zatanna narrowed her eyes, muttered something in Italian under her breath that he was sure was a curse, and walked away from him. 

It wasn’t directed at him, but it hurt because he understood.

And also because that likely _was_ her only chance, and it was gone now. 

\--------------------

 _Get a hold of yourself,_ Bruce thought with as sharp an edge as he could put on his own mind, **now.**

He was going through the motions, he was getting things done, but it still felt like reality was tilted on its head. It had been a while since he felt so… removed from his actions. Like an out-of-body experience, magnified to a disorienting magnitude. His body hurt but he didn’t remember getting hit. There were thoughts in his head but he wasn’t thinking. People were responding to him in specific, worrying ways and he wasn’t positive what he had done to deserve it.

There was a blank in his mind. Talking to Roy, sure something was wrong but unsure what— and then blank. Nothing. He couldn’t force it back any further. There was an actual _hole_ where time had transpired. When he had done things he would be held responsible for but he didn’t know what those things were. 

He had practice in turning his face into his mask and holding it, and that was all that was keeping him moving at this point. People were looking. He had to pretend he was functioning so they all would, too.

Diana put a hand on his shoulder, though, and Clark closed the gap between them so there were fewer people that could see their faces— without being asked. These two there was no use hiding from. These two understood him much more clearly than he could ever have imagined when he first met them. 

It was nice to feel safe, and breathe, for just a few seconds. Even he needed to catch his breath every once in a while.

“What now?” He asked. It came out much less sure than he would have liked. 

Clark breathed out heavily and straightened with visible effort. Although focused on the distance, his eyes were still bright. “Regroup,” he said— suggested. When Bruce followed his gaze, it was focused on the team, separate from the rest in a tight group. It was deserved, yes, but it still hurt when Dick spun around and looked at him suspiciously for a second before he moved his hand away from his utility belt. 

He was sparse with where he placed his trust, so it was understood that most people didn’t trust him. From kids, though— because that was what they were, _kids,_ beneath it all, he forgot that so easily— it stung that much more. And when it was Dick…

“We owe them a great deal,” Diana said softly. “They did better than we ever could have hoped when it came down to the wire. You should be proud.” 

“I am,” Bruce said, and he really, truly was. And they were basically his team, and if there wasn’t the shadow of the sixteen hours hanging over them he thought he could smile with the pride. It didn’t feel appropriate still, though— especially looking at the bruises on Dick’s arms. Bruises he was going to have to ice and bandage alongside Alfred and they would match his hands perfectly. _God._ “But…”

 _I wish it hadn’t happened._ A wasted sentiment. He was really rattled if he was stopping those from slipping out. 

“Agreed,” Clark said softly. “And we need more plans like this in place. Better ones.”

Strange to hear coming from him— but then, being one of the strongest people on the planet, Clark had always been weird about mind control. The same way Bruce had always insisted on having Kryptonite on him— based on paranoia, but with a good reason. “This one functioned well enough.”

Clark glanced at him. “They’re children.” 

“They’re heroes, too.” 

Clark looked deeply unhappy, but he let it drop. They both knew Diana saw them as warriors, too, so this was an argument he was going to lose. “Any idea where we were? What we did?”

_Did we hurt anyone?_

Bruce wished he had an answer. All he could do was shake his head. 

“We’ll figure it out soon enough,” Diana said, with an edge to her voice. “For better or worse. That much I’m sure of.” 

Silence. Bruce continued to watch the group. No one was too badly hurt. That was the only silver lining so far, but he felt so off-kilter he would take what he could get.

“We’ll recover from this,” Clark said. “We just… need to get our feet under us. That’s all.”

Normally, Bruce would feel exasperated by his simplicity. Clark liked to state the obvious. He liked pleasantries. He liked belief as much as facts when Bruce preferred the latter. It was tangible. It got results. 

But this time, it was completely accurate. The world was listing beneath his feet. He would need to adjust to the sway, and then learn to walk in it, and eventually he would stop feeling it.

It wouldn’t stabilize for a while, if at all, but they would be okay regardless. That was what they did.

Moved forward.

“We will,” Bruce said.


End file.
